1811. 
GOEDHART, A BUSHMAN CHIEF. 
297 
This little seemed, however, as the promise of more, and indicated 
the approach of the rainy season. The weather remaining cloudy, 
prevented my taking any observation for the latitude. 
We were visited in a very friei;idly manner by half a dozen 
Bushmen, one of whom was well known to the missionaries and 
Hottentots, by the name of Goedhart (Good-heart). His brother, 
some years ago, going into the colony to beg tobacco, was wantonly 
shot ; in consequence of which this man, naturally enough, conceived 
a deadly hatred for his brother's murderers ; but, unfortunately, 
classed with them, the whole race of boors, and vowed perpetual 
vengeance and warfare against them. He was ever on the look-out : 
and, in his many predatory excursions, had carried off' a great 
number of cattle from the colony. The missionaries and Klaar- 
water Hottentots were not considered by him as in any way impli- 
cated with the boors ; and it was under this persuasion only, that he 
came to us in peace : but, had we been a strange party of colonists, 
he would doubtlessly have visited us in a very different manner ; 
and the first intimation of his approach, would have been a shower 
of poisoned arrows poured upon us in the middle of the night. 
We gave him, and each of his companions, what was considered, 
a large quantity of tobacco, and they departed well satisfied. In the 
same mode we dismissed the three who had been engaged at Lion 
Fountain to guide us to the river by a new track ; for, on maturer 
deliberation, we began to be apprehensive that if, from a natural 
fickleness, or any other cause, they should desert us by the way, the 
least misfortune that could befall us, would be the loss of a great part 
of our oxen, through want of water. 
Soon after leaving Schiet Fontein, we began to ascend the 
barren mountains which form the principal range of the Karree- 
bergen ; and for two hours followed a stony road, along a high 
level between the mountains. In other countries, mountains excite 
surprise and admiration by their rude, fantastic, and irregular forms, 
their spiry crags shooting up to the clouds, or their rugged sides 
crumbled and moulded by time into every variety of surface ; but here, 
Q Q 
